His eyes narrowed. He gave a brief nod. “Good enough. You’ll give your assignment priority, though. If you—” His brows snapped down. “What is it?”
Her heart was pounding, but unlike Rule, he wouldn’t be able to hear that. Maybe her eyes had widened for a split second before it vanished. “What do you mean?”
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
She had. It had hovered in the air between Drummond and Mullins for a second, a pale blur in the air . . . one hand outstretched, just as at the shooting range. A wedding ring on one finger.
No way in hell was she telling Drummond and Mullins about it. “I’m fine.” She turned to Mullins. “Let’s go.”
FOURTEEN
THE wolf wanted more time to sniff at the base of that oak, to trot along leafy paths flavored with scents of deer and raccoon. He wanted to chase his clanmate through the trees, romp with him in a tumble of nips and pounces on that wide, grassy lawn. But the man was needed now. He allowed himself one gusty sigh, then reached for the song.
Moonlight flooded him, blinded him, ruptured his heart and flung him into the abyss where leaf-crunch and fire-crackle melded with inky black, a silent tsunami of song and pain rending him, rendering him . . .
Whole. Reformed, two-footed, his breathing unruffled, Rule lingered in the fringe of trees long enough to pull on the jean shorts he’d carried in his mouth.
He’d been right. Ruben and Deborah’s land welcomed the Change. He strode out of the lovely little scrap of forest into their backyard.
Deborah stood near one of the rear flower beds, a dirty trowel in one hand. She wore a faded blue sweatshirt and jeans. She was staring at him.
“I hope I didn’t startle you,” he said as he drew near. “I’m afraid I’m a trifle underdressed, but it’s difficult to carry much in the way of clothing when I’m four-footed.”
She had an odd, stunned expression on her face. “What did you do? I . . . felt it. Something moved through the earth. I’ve never felt anything like it.”
“The Change calls earth to dance with moonsong. I imagine it would feel peculiar to one touching Earth at the time.”
“Peculiar. Yes.” She smiled suddenly. “And incredibly lovely. I was encouraging my rhododendron, you see. You’re here to see Ruben?”
“I am, yes.”
“I’ll take you to him. “
“I don’t like to interrupt you.”
“I’ll take you to him,” she repeated, and started for the house. Rule perforce walked with her. “You didn’t want to be seen coming to the house. That’s why you came through the woods in, ah, your other form.”
“It seemed best.”
Silence fell. He didn’t try to fill it, sensing something was brewing in her. Halfway across the yard, it boiled over into words. “I hate this. I hate it.”
Her voice, low but throbbing with emotion, told him to step carefully. “This?”
“This, them . . . the people who tried to kill him. The way we’re living now, with guards lurking around. Ruben almost died, but he didn’t, so now they’re trying to strip him of everything else—honor, freedom, his reputation, his work. He didn’t even want me to work outside today. He wishes I weren’t here at all, but he especially wishes I wouldn’t go into our own yard. He wants me to hide. Did you know that?” It was demand as much as question. “He wants me to go into hiding.”
Rule knew. He’d suggested it to Ruben last week . . . but it had already occurred to Ruben that their enemies might try to grab Deborah, to use her against him. She refused to leave her home and her husband. “You’ve every right to be angry.”
“Oh, that’s fine, then. I’m entitled to my anger, so that’s fine.” She stopped, faced him. “He doesn’t get visions about himself. He doesn’t even get hunches, usually, not about his own welfare.”
“I know.” It was a common blind spot for precogs. They were much more likely to get hunches about others, or about the grand sweep of events. Now and then a precog might have a feeling he shouldn’t cross a certain street at a certain time, but most of the time a precog was as likely as anyone else to step blithely into the path of an out-of-control car.
Deborah shook her head as if to shake off some troublesome thought. “How do you do it? Lily was injured last month, just like Ruben. She’s a target still. You have to live with that. How do you do it?”
What could he say? That his wolf wasn’t prone to worry? That the man was, so he wrapped as much protection around Lily as she’d allow? Neither of those options was available to Deborah. “I fell in love with a cop. She’s always been a target. The danger is greater now, but she hasn’t changed. I can’t ask her to.” He paused. “It helps when I can run as wolf. Does digging in the earth help you?”
“Sometimes. Lately it hasn’t been enough.” She started walking again, her head down. “You and Lily are partners in this—this secret war. You aren’t pushed to the sidelines, to the sit-home-and-wait role.”
Rule was uneasily aware of being drawn too close to the explosive intimacies of someone else’s marriage. Probably he should shut up. He didn’t. Her distress was too real. “Have you been pushed?”
“No.” She brushed her hair back impatiently. “I opted for the sidelines years ago, as far as Ruben’s job goes. I didn’t see a place for me there, and I had my own place. Teaching matters to me. That way worked for both of us for a long time. It isn’t working now.”
“Hmm.”
“Not that I know what I can do. I’m not a cop, not a lupus or a trained witch or a spy or—or anything useful.”
“You don’t have to be a warrior to be part of this fight. You do have to want and intend to oppose her. You can’t join the Shadow Unit as a form of marital therapy.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m making you uncomfortable.”
“This is a conversation you should have with Ruben, not me.”
Her sudden smile woke the dimple in her cheek. “I’m making you uncomfortable.”
He had to smile back. “Yes, you are. You seem pleased by that.”
“I feel quite daring. I’m used to worrying about what others think, or what I think they might think, or what I think about what I think they think. That doesn’t seem to matter right now. I wonder why?”
“Perhaps because it doesn’t matter what I think.”
“That might be it.” She was quietly delighted. “That might just be it. Would you like some coffee? Or something else to drink?”
They’d reached the back door. “Coffee would be lovely.” He knew from previous visits that Deborah made excellent coffee.
“I’ll bring some in. It will just take a few minutes. Ruben should be in his study.”
Apparently she no longer felt the need to escort him personally to her husband. Rule smiled wryly as he made his way to the book-lined room. He spoke before he reached the open door so Ruben would know it was him. Humans could seldom identify someone from the sound of their footsteps. “Deborah let me in. She’s going to bring us some coffee.”
“Ah. Good.” Ruben was at his desk with his laptop in front of him. He moved it to one side, but didn’t rise, which meant he wasn’t feeling well. “Thank you for coming. Do sit down. I was just reading an interesting article about a new synthetic polymer they believe may make a good insulator against magic.”
“Really? I thought plastic was transparent to magic—as are most synthetics.”
“Apparently this is more akin to rubber than plastic, but has different properties than rubber.”
“Cullen will want to hear about that.” They continued to discuss the various approaches different corporations were taking toward developing an inexpensive magical insulator for tech. It made an interesting and innocuous topic while they waited.